


Too much of you (is still not enough)

by DreamingOfABetterYou



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Communication is key y'all, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, They're finally having a conversation on what 'fraternising' means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 23:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19328449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingOfABetterYou/pseuds/DreamingOfABetterYou
Summary: In which certain things are cleared up, Crowley's plants receive some much deserved love, and Aziraphale finally gets what he wants.





	Too much of you (is still not enough)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello darlings!  
> So this ship hit me like a freaking gold brick in the face. I love it.
> 
> I hope you have fun reading it! xx

Aziraphale was, how should we say it, in a pickle.

After the whole the-world almost-ended-and-then-didn’t affair, he had agreed to come back to Crowley’s place, if only to have a place to stay for the night. Not that he technically needed the sleep, but he did need the comfort of someone warm and familiar next to him, even if it wasn’t exactly in the way he’d want Crowley to be near him.

He would take whatever was offered.

6000 years of friendship aside, Aziraphale had actually never been to Crowley’s place – not this particular one, at least. So he did what every celestial being would have done after just having survived the almost-apocalypse: He asked for a tour, and then took matters in his own hands when Crowley – too stunned to speak for a few seconds – didn’t come through.

He had wandered down corridor after corridor, tenderly running the backs of his fingers over lush, green leaves, peering at this thing and that, and pretended not to notice Crowley staring at him while he followed him around, as Crowley pretended not to notice Aziraphale petting his plants and possibly ruining the reign of terror that he had previously imposed upon the green bastards.

There was too much pretending, and Aziraphale was tired of it.

 

They had ended up on an ancient Chesterfield sofa which seemed awfully familiar but shouldn’t (it should be burned to bits in his bookshop, and wasn’t that a depressing thought), and Aziraphale was nearly certain that if he were to wiggle his fingers in between the cushions he would find the King of Hearts playing card and the 67 pence that he had put there at some point, not quite consciously.

Crowley, the reptile that he was, had poured himself into a not-quite-appropriate sprawling position, limbs gangling every which way. Aziraphale could barely turn his eyes away from those long legs in black denim, but had to do so to rescue what was left of his sanity. He cleared his throat, awkwardly, clenching his hands into the fabric of his tweed trousers to keep them from shaking and from feeling too sweaty, and licked his lips once before turning his head towards Crowley, who was already looking at him.

„Dearest…do you remember 1862?“ he asked quietly, and wished he hadn’t said anything right the moment after. Crowley smiled in what most people would call a slightly imperious way; Aziraphale, however, prided himself on not being most people. He liked to imagine that there was fondness in the way Crowley’s lips curved, the particular manner in which he cocked his head, the way his eyes seemed to soften whenever Aziraphale did something in the category of “remarkably stupid but generally enjoyable”.

„Oh of course I do” he replied, flapping a hand around like the world’s least aerodynamic dove. “Lovely clothes, and of course carriages, but I could really go without the sideburns.”

Aziraphale sighed; nothing was ever easy with Crowley. “That’s not quite what I meant. Do you remember St. James’s? Us meeting?” _Us fighting, and you breaking my heart_ , he didn’t say. He wanted to. Desperately.

Crowley shifted into a more conventionally-seated position at the angel’s suddenly serious, slightly wistful tone. “Angel, I never forgot a second of any moment that we spent together.”

“When you said…forget it. I’m just being silly” Aziraphale muttered, busying himself in aggressively picking non-existent lint of his spotless trousers. His trousers were appalled at the implication that they were anything less than perfect.

His eyes closed when he felt a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

“Darling, look at me. What is it?” The demon sounded worried enough that Aziraphale wished he had never even brought anything up. They could have been sitting here, drinking and talking and pretending what they did wasn’t flirting. It had been good enough for 6000 years, why would he risk that?

 

It wasn’t enough. Not at all. And it hadn’t been for a long time. But what he needed to know before he could finally lock away those inconvenient feelings that clawed at him from the inside into a heavy iron-clad box, was… “Fraternising, Crowley. You said you had many others to…fraternise with. I just wanted to know how – how many that meant. When, and how long. I told you it was silly, I’m just…”

Crowley beamed, a mischievous twist to his lips, a twinkle in his yellow eyes. Aziraphale’s heart, no matter if it was technically useless since it didn’t need to pump blood or any such base things, clenched painfully in his chest. Good memories, apparently. Memories that he wasn’t a part of. He wondered if Crowley hadn’t forgotten any of the moments spent with the others, too. How often he had said those exact words to get what he wanted. _Who_ he wanted. It made him feel sick. He yearned to duck away from the playful palm that was now running up his back, but couldn’t quite bring himself to. If this was the last he’d have of him, he’d use it all, and remember it for the rest of eternity; there was no box large enough to contain any of his feelings towards Crowley. “You’re jealous” the demon crowed, almost cackled.

Aziraphale sighed, running a hand over his eyes, and then wringing them in his lap. He couldn’t look at the demon, it was too much to ask. “Maybe a bit. I always wanted to imagine that this, _us_ , was something unusual. Ineffable.” He felt silly about the whole affair, if he thought about it; they hadn’t even kissed. Not once. There was nothing to rightfully presume that Crowley even wanted any of this. Any of _him_. But still… “Did your feelings change somewhere between then and now or am I still just one of many to...” he broke off feebly, not daring to speak it out into the room.

The sudden drop in temperature was tangible. When he dared to look over at Crowley again, terrified of the disgust he might see, he almost shied away from the pain etched on his features, the way his shoulders had suddenly dropped as if his strings had been cut, leaving him dangling and alone. It was a stark contrast to the joyous creature that had sat in his place only a minute ago. _Why do I always make him miserable in the end_ , Aziraphale wondered, turning his eyes back to the pretzelwork of his fingers.

“Don’t even finish that thought. Zira, you should have told me this was weighing so heavily on you. Look at me. Angel, please.”

Aziraphale laughed wetly, and didn’t comply. “It’s mortifying, isn’t it?” he muttered. “That our affections are so imbalanced. I do understand, of course, and I don’t expect you to…”

Crowley _hissed_ , there was no other word for it, in no language that had ever or would ever exist. “If you don’t stop talking, I will hex you to get you to listen. There was nobody else, Angel, not in 1793, or 1862, or at any time after the Garden. After…after the incident with the holy water, in the Bentley, in 1967, I fell off the wagon. For about twenty years, give or take. I don’t remember much, except for missing you furiously, and trying to get over you in whatever way seemed most distracting.” He took a shaking breath, and just like that he was in that dark basement club in Washington again, sweat and sex and powders of various persuasions clinging to his senses. He remembered sobbing in a dingy bathroom of a dingier bar, splashing water on his face and vodka down his throat, and getting on his knees in that exact bathroom only ten minutes later for a faceless blonde man in a waistcoat.

Maybe, sometimes, it was good not to remember everything.

 

“I’m not proud of what I said in the Park, my dear, I just…I was hurt and wanted you to suffer. I’ve regretted what I said that day ever since. Knowing what this has meant for you, for the last 150 years, breaks my heart. I…I have loved you from the moment you held your wing over me, as if I wasn’t a disgusting, monstrous creature deserving of disdain and nothing more. You treated me like one of your own, like I was worth being saved, if only from a spot of rain.” He chuckled, but it was a dry and joyless sound, like leftover ash from a disappointing potluck dinner with relatives you hate.

Aziraphale gaped at him for a moment before he remembered how to use words; and even then, it was a limited success. “Crowley. I.”

“I’m going too fast again, aren’t I?” he asked, trying for humour and missing by a mile by account of how his voice trembled when he said it. Crowley wasn’t the only one to have said things over the millennia that had scarred the other being.

Aziraphale reached for him, tenderly cupping the demon’s face in his hands like one would one’s favourite mug of tea. He ran careful thumbs over the sharp cheekbones, long lashes fluttering under his ministrations, and leaned in until their foreheads touched. It was positively Victorian, how much that simple touch stole his breath. “Let me breathe for a second, dearest; this is a lot.” Crowley nodded, wrapping his hands around Aziraphale’s wrists; most beloved handcuffs.

The angel cleared his throat awkwardly – he might not be English in essence, but had spent enough time around them that a certain natural uneasiness had only been strengthened. “I have loved you from the beginning, too, you know. When you spread your wings, and you were so deliciously forlorn but quite obviously not bothered by it. At least that’s what I thought back then. I didn’t know you that well, but I knew I wanted to have everything. I wish I had done everything on earth with you.” Crowley’s mouth twitched into the pale ghost of a smile. He remembered Francis’ occasional bouts of eternity’s dramatics, not knowing how much more his friends would have had to say about this.

“You know I’ve always been a bit of a hedonist, but nothing compares to the cravings I’ve been having for you over the last millennia. I just wasn’t sure you were feeling even remotely the same. I didn’t allow myself that luxury.” Aziraphale hesitated, for only a second, to lick his lips, and pretended not to notice how Crowley, almost imperceptibly, leaned in just a tiny bit more.

“If I would have said yes, in 1967, I would have asked you to come inside for just a glass of Chateau-Neuf or something ridiculous. And I would have sat you down on my sofa, and climbed on top of you right then and there, and never let you go ever again. But I was afraid, Crowley, terribly so, to fall for you when you still had all these options.” _All of whom might be better than me._ For being an immortal celestial being who had literally helped to shape the world, Aziraphale really did have some trouble with his confidence sometimes.

“Angel. I’ve fallen thousands of years ago, and I never got up again. I don’t intend to. And it’s been the best damn thing that has ever happened to me.” The hands that had formerly clasped his wrists were now distractingly following the lines of Aziraphale’s forearms, down to the sensitive edge of his elbows and back up, caressing the soft dip around the wrist bone and sneakily flicking up to the palm before moving downwards again.

 

Aziraphale – something he usually didn’t do often, but did with remarkable regularity when he was around Crowley – dared: Leaning in just that little bit more, nuzzling his nose against the sharp edge of Crowley’s. “Better than causing chaos on the M25 on the first day of summer term break?”

Crowley’s laugh was a joyous thing, loud and abrasive and charming. He threw his head back as he laughed, his pale neck a long line of promises intended to be kept. “You make a valid point” he breathed when he turned his eyes back on Aziraphale.

“I’m sorry I ruined the mood” the angel mumbled, turning into the palm curving around his round cheek when it was offered to him and covering the hand with his own.

Crowley made a tutting sound, something he had familiarised himself with when he had been with Warlock, and never let go again. “No, no. I’m sorry I was such a prick fifty years ago.”

Aziraphale smiled, just a bit, just enough. “To be fair, you have always been a bit of a prick. And I love you for it.”

Again, the temperature shifted. As Crowley slowly got up, never losing touch of Aziraphale, and straddled him carefully, everything seemed to hold their breath. Even Crowley’s plants, had they had fingers, would have crossed them.

“Crowley” Aziraphale whispered in awe as he looked up at the other creature settling on his lap, slow and steady like one would approach a skittish horse. (Aziraphale wouldn’t have appreciated the comparison, although he did think that horses were terrific animals.)

“Zira” the demon replied simply, curving his long limbs around the other creature until they were pressed together so tightly that no piece of paper would have fit between them – and what a traumatised piece it would have been.

He reached out with a single finger, tracing the soft curve of Aziraphale’s lower lip with reverence in his eyes.

“Do not tempt me so, Crowley” the angel whined, and Crowley felt the shape of the words against his finger.

“Temptation is what I do best, I am a demon after all.”

Aziraphale shook his head, almost violently, but with the gentlest expression on his face, one that is usually reserved for little old ladies cooing over their little old dogs. “You are more. You are everything.”

There was no need for any more words after that. Crowley leaned in with a sigh, caging Aziraphale in with his limbs, and finally – _finally_ – captured his lips with his own.

 

Six thousand years are a long time to wait, and they are that much longer when you almost get what you want, but never truly do. When the object of your affection is right in front of you, but neither of you would dare to reach out, for fear of losing everything. (Unsurprisingly, the game of chicken had been invented by a young lad who had once seen Crowley and Aziraphale in a theatre, both obviously wanting to lean in every time the other whispered something devasting about the actors’ incompetence but neither of them daring to. Where the name-giving chicken came in, however, is best left forgotten.)

Six thousand years spent in idiocy and misunderstandings are even longer, as both angel and demon would attest to. However, their first kiss was nothing close to the feral, cloth-ripping and moaning mess that one would expect. There would, after all, be enough time for debauchery later; that was the point of being immortal. No, for now it was enough to press lips together carefully, gently, slowly, just learning the other’s shapes and textures.

Crowley positively melted into Aziraphale’s chest the moment their lips touched, and the angel had wasted no time in wrapping his arms around the other’s lean frame; all to make sure he wouldn’t suddenly disappear. A ribcage had never seemed so fascinating to Aziraphale before, but then again no other ribcage had ever hosted the one love of his existence. He touched the tip of his tongue to Crowley’s bottom lip questioningly, running it along the outer edge like Crowley had done to him with his finger just a moment before. The demon _keened_ , a desperate sound that tasted delicious, burrowing closer into Aziraphale’s embrace and opening his mouth, meeting the angel halfway and shuddering when their tongues touched for the first time.

It could have been thirty minutes or eighteen days – it had been, in fact, five hours and fourteen minutes – before they broke apart.

“Crowley. Crowley, my dearest” Aziraphale muttered nonsensically, too drunk on finally getting what he had wanted for so long.

“Always yours. Angel, never leave me again.”

Aziraphale shook, not just his head, but his entire body, at this abhorrent thought. Leaving Crowley? “Never” he mumbled, before leaning in again and losing himself in Crowley.

The world was not ending, after all, so what could there possibly be to do that was more important?

Crowley chuckled against Aziraphale’s lips after an eternity or five. “I just remembered something. _Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably_.”

Aziraphale grinned against Crowley’s mouth, feeling the thin skin around the demon’s eyes crinkle where he had placed his hands to once again cup his face. “You did say you liked his funny ones better.”

“I like to imagine he wrote this about us.”

“My dear, not everything is about you and me.”

Crowley smiled mischievously, and wedged a careful hand under Aziraphale’s waistcoat, smoothing a palm over his heart and enjoying listening to the nervous skip in the angel’s breath.

“Oh, but it should be.”

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes are from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" and WIlliam Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", respectively. Because I think the former is heartbreaking and the latter is said in context to a character that David Tennant actually played once. It just seemed fitting.
> 
> Also yes the time ranges given when they kiss add up to 67 because I'm a sentimental nerd.


End file.
